Billions in agricultural aid have poured into Haiti in the name of development and hunger reduction. Yet, decades on, much of this “help” has deepened dependency, weakened local farming, and entrenched inequality. For humanitarian aid to be effective, it must stop exporting ready-made solutions and start trusting and investing in Haitian-led capacity.
01.September 2025
Aid with good intentions but bad outcomes
When Haiti appears in international headlines, it is usually in the context of a crisis such as natural disasters, poverty, or political turmoil. What rarely makes the news, however, is the country’s long history of external policies and aid programmes that, despite being framed as humanitarian support, have systematically undermined its agricultural autonomy.
In the 1980s, major donors and international financial institutions pushed for trade liberalisation. This opened Haiti’s markets to a flood of heavily subsidised American rice, and local farmers could not compete. Many abandoned rural life, moving to overcrowded cities, and the country’s reliance on food imports soared. On paper, agencies like
On paper, agencies like USAID promised recovery, resilience, and growth. In practice, their programmes prioritised export crops over staples Haitians eat, introduced expensive farming inputs unsuited to the local context, and sidelined traditional knowledge that had sustained communities for generations.
Three truths Haiti teaches us about international aid
- Aid disconnected from reality fails
Too many agricultural programmes in Haiti have been designed in offices in cities such as Washington or Geneva, rather than in the fields of Artibonite or the hills of Grand ’Anse. Farmers have been told what to grow, which seeds to use, even which livestock to keep, often with disastrous results. The 1978 US-led eradication of Haitian pigs, as an example, wiped out a resilient native breed and replaced it with costly, less adaptable imports, devastating rural livelihoods.
- Excluding local voices is not just inefficient, it is unethical
In interviews I carried out with Haitian farmers and NGO coordinators, many described decision-making processes that happened without their involvement. International agencies held coordination meetings at which Haitian officials were completely absent. Funds were channelled directly to foreign NGOs, bypassing the state entirely. This eroded public trust and hollowed out the capacity of Haitian institutions to lead their own recovery.
- Dependency is political, not accidental
Dependency does not simply arise from a country being poor and in need; it is the result of policy choices. Prioritising short-term relief over long-term investment keeps power in the hands of donors. When USAID closed most of its programmes in Haiti in 2025, the vacuum it left exposed a hard truth: without sustained local capacity-building, the moment external support withdraws, the system collapses.
What needs to change
Haiti does not need another quick fix or a flashy project launch; it requires a fundamental shift in how aid is conceived, delivered, and evaluated. The international community already has frameworks such as the Core Humanitarian Standard, the Good Humanitarian Donorship Principles, or Sustainable Development Goal 17. However, these remain ineffective if not enforced in practice.
Here are three concrete steps donors, including Switzerland, could take:
- Put Haitian farmers at the centre of decision-making processes. If aid projects affect their land, livelihoods, and markets, they must have a decisive voice in how they are designed and run.
- Invest in local food systems. Protect smallholder farmers from being wiped out by subsidised imports and prioritise production for domestic consumption before exports.
- Shift power to Haitian-led organisations. Direct more funding through trusted local partners, with transparency obligations that apply equally to them and to international actors.
Why does it matter for Switzerland?
This is not just Haiti’s problem. Switzerland’s strong humanitarian tradition and influence in international cooperation position the country to champion a different model, one that measures success not by the number of tonnes of food delivered, but by whether a community still thrives once aid trucks are gone.
To achieve this, we must ask ourselves difficult questions: Are we empowering people or making them dependent on us? Are we listening or simply prescribing? Are we ready to step back and let others take the lead?
Haiti’s story is not a tale of failure, but a call to action for aid to stop treating local communities as passive recipients and start treating them as equal partners. Ultimately, true solidarity is not about creating dependency but empowering autonomy.
